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The main aim of this research study is to investigate the clarity and familiarity of three scoring rubrics used in a Saudi university's preparatory year program (PYP) for assessing students' writing achievement in midterm and final exams. This exploration is important in providing some evidence for the quality of scoring rubrics. To achieve that purpose, a 13-item online questionnaire was used to collect Saudi EFL PYP students' perspectives toward two quality criteria concerning rubrics; (1) clarity of the information included in the PYP rubrics, and (2) familiarity of the rubrics to students. The subjects were 281 Arabic-speaking male and female EFL Saudi students enrolled in three different academic levels in a Saudi university's PYP. The results suggest that the quality of the PYP rubrics is insufficient and the criteria set for providing evidence for the rubric qualities were not met. The results show that students tend to have a mild agreement on the clarity of the PYP rubrics, whereas they show a clear disagreement on their familiarity with the rubrics and with why and how the rubrics are used. The study implicates that administrators and teachers need to carefully consider the clarity and familiarity of rubrics in order to justify the decisions made about students' writing abilities. Rubrics that are unclear or unfamiliar can make students feel confused and frustrated, as they cannot get a clear sense of their writing scores, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

The purpose of this cross-sectional observational study is to show how the perception of returnees' L2 can be changed in the digital era and how the massive spread of technology, among other factors, has eased an Arab (Saudi) returnee child's maintenance of English as an L2. The study discusses how technology allowed the returnee to continue to receive abundant L2 input, use the L2 daily, and interact with native speakers. The child was 9 months old when his family moved to the United States and was 6.2 years old when returned to Saudi Arabia. The study took place 5.4 years after their return when his age was 11.6 years old. A free conversation with the child, observation of online gaming, and an interview with parents were conducted to observe the child's L2 maintenance. The child demonstrated an intermediate level of fluency and produced non-verbal communication in free conversation and online gaming. The parents held positive attitudes toward bilingualism and English which was believed to have a great influence on the child's L2 maintenance. The study concludes that technology, parental attitudes, and personality and motivation have all contributed to the child's successful L2 maintenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of pre-listening activities on Arabic-speaking EFL learners' comprehension of spoken texts. Background This study aims to contribute to the current research and to increase our understanding about the effectiveness of pre-listening activities. Specifically, this study seeks to clarify some of the research in this area that seems to be incongruent. Methodology The study investigates two widely implemented activities in second language (L2) classrooms: vocabulary preteaching and content previewing. Ninety-three native-Arabic speaking EFL learners, whose proficiently levels were beginner, intermediate, or advanced, were randomly assigned to a control group or one of three experimental groups: the vocabulary-only (VO) group, content-only (CO) group, or vocabulary + content (VC) group. Each of the experimental groups received one of the treatments to determine which pre-listening activity was more effective and whether additional pre-listening activities yield additional comprehension. Listening comprehension of the aural text was measured by a test comprising 13 multiple-choice and true-false questions. Contribution The present study provided additional explanations regarding the long-standing contradicting results about vocabulary preteaching and content previewing. Findings The results showed that pre-listening activities had a positive impact on Arabicspeaking EFL learners' listening comprehension, with the VO group significantly increasing their scores on the posttest compared to those of the control or other groups. Vocabulary preteaching was particularly beneficial for more advanced learners. With regard to which pre-listening activity contributed the most to better listening comprehension, vocabulary preteaching was the most effective. Content previewing did not increase comprehension for the CO group and had no additional benefit for the VC group. Recommendations for Practitioners The results of this study suggest that providing L2 students with instruction on single words, multi-words, and idioms in the upcoming aural input has a positive impact on listening comprehension. The study provides positive evidence that vocabulary knowledge and word recognition play a major role in understanding L2 aural texts. It also provides support for the practice of vocabulary teaching in L2 listening classes. Recommendations for Researchers This paper recommends that researchers explore new pre-listening activities that have never studied. Future research should be extended to include other nations and contextual situations to extend our knowledge about the effect of pre-listening activities. As far as listening comprehension can only be achieved when listeners are attentive and engaged, the listening text should be interesting and the lexical coverage of the listening text should be appropriate for all participants. Future Research The results are to be interpreted carefully because they are limited by the students' L2 proficiency, demographic, and cultural backgrounds (i.e., first language (L1) proficiency, age, gender, Middle Eastern culture). Results might be quite different if the study was conducted with different populations who have different life and language learning experiences (Vandergrift & Baker, 2015). Therefore, the results of this study indicate there is much room for improvement and a need for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]